Harley Young gets up close and personal with the jurassic creatures at SEA LIFE Blackpool
SEA LIFE Blackpool has recently undergone a £1.4 million transformation of its ocean tank with the space being reimagined as an immersive Jurassic seascape connecting today’s marine life with their ancient ancestors.
Guests walk beneath a towering four-metre viewing window where an impressive
mosasaurus skeleton takes centre stage in the 500,000-litre tank. The tank itself is filled using seawater pumped directly from the Blackpool coast, with the process taking 14 tidal cycles over the course of a week to complete.
Inside the ocean tunnel, visitors can marvel at over 50 different sea creatures, including blacktip reef sharks, nurse sharks and stingrays.
Or, for those feeling even more adventurous and looking to get up close and personal with these incredible creatures, snorkelling with sharks experiences are available. I was lucky enough to be invited by SEA LIFE to take a dip in the tank myself and was in absolute awe of how immersive seeing the creatures up close in this way could be.
Once my partner and I had spent some time soaking up the sights and knowledge from the exhibits, we were guided off behind the scenes ready for our snorkel adventure. We donned our wetsuits and had a full safety briefing from a member of the team before plunging into the dedicated snorkel cage where we did our absolute best to stay as still as possible for the full 20-minute session.
We must have done a good job, as an abundance of sea life swam right by us at eye level, including stingrays, the magnificent sharks we had come to see, and SEA LIFE Blackpool’s female sea turtle Phoenix who I actually fed as part of another experience back when she spent a few months at SEA LIFE Manchester.
It’s one thing seeing these spectacular creatures behind glass, but a completely different experience sharing the same waters as them and seeing just how they coexist with each other.
Jenn McDonough, General Manager at SEA LIFE Blackpool says: “This is the closest you will get to stepping into a Jurassic ocean. We are incredibly excited to reopen the ocean tunnel and welcome our animals back into this spectacular habitat,
“It is not just a visually striking experience, it has been carefully designed to meet the needs of every species in our care. We hope visitors will be amazed to discover just how long these animals have been part of our oceans and the incredible journey they have survived.”
For more information on SEA LIFE Blackpool’s snorkelling with sharks experience, or to book tickets to the aquarium head to visitsealife.com.
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